Joe Wilson vs.Select Committee on Intelligence

CNN WOLF BLITZER REPORTS

Karl Rove and CIA Leak; Joe Wilson Interview; Aired July 14, 2005 - 17:00 ET

BLITZER: But, basically, you still hold to the notion that the whole idea of sending someone to Niger originated in the Vice President's Office?

WILSON: No, no, no, no, no. The idea of sending someone to Niger originated in response to a request from the Office of the Vice President. That's how I was briefed. That required an answer.

The decision was made by the operations people at the CIA, after a meeting that I had with the analytical community, to ask me if I would go and help answer some of the questions that still remained so that we would better understand the situation.

And let me also say that raising the question was perfectly legitimate. Indeed, it was an important question to raise. The vice president would have been derelict in not raising it.

Had, in fact, there been evidence of uranium sales from Niger to Iraq, it would have demonstrated conclusively that Saddam Hussein was attempting to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. The fact that there wasn't evidence to that effect should have reassured the U.S. government that, at least on this side, there was no evidence.

BLITZER: All right. So at least you agree -- and I know you have in the past as well -- that the vice president never directly asked you to go or asked that anyone go, namely his staff just wanted some answers and it was the CIA's decision to then send -- dispatch -- someone to try to get some firsthand information?

WILSON: That's correct. And I've said that in my op-ed, and I've said it in an interview here, and I've said it every time since.

BLITZER: Now, the Senate Intelligence Committee report, as you well know, suggested this and I'll read to you what they say: "Interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip" -- Counterproliferation Division over at the CIA.

And you've denied that your wife was the one who came up with the idea to send you

WILSON: It's not so much that I've denied it. It was the CIA itself that denied it a week after the Novak article came out, well before I was ever in a position to acknowledge that my wife worked for the CIA.

And indeed, regrettably, the staff at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence did not call the CIA to find out their official position. But a year before, Newsday reporters, Knut Royce and Tim Phelps did, and this is what the CIA told them:

"A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked alongside the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment.

"They -- the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story -- "were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising. There are people elsewhere in the government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up for some reason. I can't figure out who it would be."

FULL TRANSCRIPT Karl Rove and CIA Leak; Joe Wilson Interview

Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq 11. NIGER

B. Former Ambassador

Officials from the CIA’s DO Counterproliferation Division (CPD) told Committee staff that in response to questions from the Vice President’s Office and the -Departments of State and Defense on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal, CPD officials discussed ways to obtain additional information.1-who could make immediate inquiries into the reporting, CPD decided to contact a former ambassador to Gabon who had a posting early in his career in Niger.

a) Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife “offered up his name” and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12,2002, from the former ambassador’s wife says, “my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activitv.” This was just one day before CPD sent a cable -requesting concurrence with CPD’s idea to send the former ambassador to Niger and requesting any additional information from the foreign government service on their uranium reports. The former ambassador’s wife told Committee staff that when CPD decided it would like to send the former ambassador to Niger, she approached her husband on behalf of the CIA and told him “there’s this crazy report” on a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq

FULL TRASCRIPT 11. NIGER Document Section 11. NIGER in PDF format, also FULL REPORT TRANSCRIPT Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq

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